Home Is Where The Wife Is
by MeerkatJo
Summary: What happens when the Doctor and the Ponds run into the Bransons in the middle of the Irish War of Independence? Read and find out! WARNING: Will contain cheesiness and some seriously amazing husband action.
1. 40

**Hello people! Thought I'd just write a Downton/Dr Who crossover, because goodness knows there is soooooo much similarity of personality between Rory and Branson and I just love writing for ****11. This is set in October 1919, after S2 Ep8, after the Branson's got married and before the Christmas Ep in the Downton timeline. Set after "The Day Of The Moon" in Dr Whoniverse. Enjoy!**

**Jo x**

* * *

><p>CRASH!<p>

"Doctor!" Amy shouted at the man climbing back onto his feet and readjusting his beloved bow tie.

"What?" He exclaimed, trying to prove his innocence. "What did I do wrong?"

"That was hardly an easy landing!" Mr Pond regained his standing whilst holding his hand to his throbbing head.

"And you broke my nail!" His wife complained from one corner of the TARDIS control room.

"Oh you women! So obsessed with nails! Be grateful you have them as lovely as you do. The women of the planet Helixiar are born with feasting maggots living on the tips of their fingers, and get this," the Doctor came rushing down the stairs in his usual _The universe is so awesome and cool and fab _mood to meet the married couple who had met again at the bottom, "When they grow up, the women have to eat the maggots in order to prove to prospective mates that they have got some seriously strong guts!" Amy and Rory stood staring at each other with one eyebrow raised each. "It's like I'm A Celebrity Get Me The Hell Out Of Here meets Love Island!" He grinned from ear to ear.

"Well, that's wonderful Doctor that you have some grasp of modern reality contest shows, but I'm afraid it's called just, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here." Amy concluded as she turned her back on the Time Lord and headed towards the TARDIS door.

"It's the one with Cockroach and Cards isn't it?" He enquired.

"Cockroach and Cards?" Rory responded, staring at the Doctor. "You mean Ant and Dec?" Rory broke down in fits of giggles, along with Amy.

"Come on you two! I want to explore instead of being cooked up inside of here, only having your ridiculous comparisons for company." Amy stood with her hand on the door handle.

"Oh! If you insist. As a matter of fact, I told you that because I thought it would be interesting."

"Yeah, well sorry to disappoint you Doctor, only about 10% of what you say actually interests me." She let out a coy smile.

"10%?" He questioned as he came to a halt next to her and her husband.

"Alright, more like…40%"

"40's good! I like 40. 40 is a Størmer number. It's the atomic number of zirconium. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights and most importantly…It's the decade you'll see If you open the door." He finished, with a smug little grin.

"Wrong again!" Rory bellowed as he opened the door and took in the sight before him.

"Well how do you know from just one look?" They all walked out of the chilly time machine.

"They're wearing clothing from just post-World War One! Look! The fashion looks practically 20s already." Amy commented.

"And I doubt you had Dublin in mind." Rory pointed at the large Customs House stood magnificently across the river.

"You never know. Might have wanted to take you to Temple Bar."

"In the middle of the war of independence?" Amy asked doubtfully.

"Maybe." The Doctor replied with an admitted look on his face. "But anyway! Who cares! It's somewhere!"

"Yeah, somewhere dangerous, especially for two Brits." Rory walked up to the railings by the embankment.

"Rory, you've encountered Daleks, Cybermen, Vampires, Silurians, plastic Roman soldiers and the most frightening of all…River Song, and you're afraid of a little mob of IRA?" At that moment a gun fired just around the corner and the gang's heads perked up like a group of meerkats.

"Yes!" Rory replied as his voice wavered.

"That's understandable!" The Doctor turned to re-enter his sexy machine, before being pulled away by the collar.

"Come on you two scaredy cats! Some people might need the help of Leadworth's greatest nurse and Gallifrey's greatest Doctor." Amy pulled them round the corner to find a group what looked like ex-army men holding a man and a woman at gun point.

"You are a supporter of independence are you not?" One soldier screamed at the man in front of his riffle.

"Yes but_"

"And you admit that you express such views in your paper!"

"I admit but it's a socialist paper! Of course it's going to be biased in favour of independence!"

"You stinking Irish ba_"

"Woah! Hold on an eternal minute!" The Doctor came running over to interrupt just as the soldier gave his prisoner a sharp kick in the side. Some of the men turned their guns at the Doctor.

"I don't think you'll want to do that. It won't kill me. I'm like a cat you see! Nine lives! Actually I can regenerate far more than nine times to be hon_" The Doctor began to ramble as he turned his head to his friends standing either side of him.

"Could you please identify yourself man!"

"Yes of course, how rude of me. I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends Amy and Rory Pond, and let me ask you, why do you feel the need to kick this man and his wife to death?" His voice becoming ever more stern as he spoke.

"How do you know they're_" Amy asked.

"Married? Rings of course. Come on Amy, you're better than that!"

"This heathen feels that the Irish pigs belong in the wild!" The soldier turned red with anger.

"Well, if you're treating him like that then it's not surprising!"

"Arrest them all!" The soldier gave the orders before the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and gave it a quick whir as he stared the soldier square in the face. The soldier gave a short unimpressed look before cocking his gun again.

"Alright alright! Send me to jail and force feed me semolina. Was it with the Irish rebels? The force feeding semolina and all that?" He questioned his friends as the other men handcuffed the three time travellers and their bewildered defendants.

"The Suffragettes I believe, Mr_?" The lady spoke.

"_Doctor! Just the Doctor." They were forced into a straight line as they were marched along to the main road. Amy spoke to the woman who was marching beside her.

"I'm Amy Pond, by the way." She informed politely.

"Yes, your loud friend mentioned earlier." Amy detected the woman's accent. "I'm Sybil Branson. Pleased to meet you Mrs Pond."

"Pleased to meet you Mrs Branson. Am I to assume some of the hostility you and your husband have been greeted with is to do with your Englishness?"

"Among other things yes. Thank you for coming to our help. I was practically shaking with fear back there."

"Oh, that's the Doctor for you. He always gets himself into difficult situations." Amy and Sybil chuckled.

"Wait men!" The commanding officer shouted. "Send the heathen and the two gentlemen in for questioning and take the women to the prison."

"Wait, no! No!" Sybil cried. "Please you can't do that he's done nothing wrong!"

"He married you!" Was her concluding reply.

"Questioning? What's so bad about questioning Doctor?" Mr Pond turned to the Time Lord.

"Because I doubt Rory, that it'll be just questioning. Most likely torture, possible execution." His usual vivacious tone of voice suddenly disappeared as he pondered the possible consequences of this sudden decision.

By then, Sybil was already tearing up as she said goodbye to her husband, possibly for the last time; mouthing a simple _I love you_ and staring intently into his eyes. Amy, having experienced many times before situations where she might never see her husband again, had much more hope than her new friend, but still gave him a sweet smile and wink as half of the soldiers lead the three men down one direction of the main street and the other half leading the other four down the opposite direction.

* * *

><p><strong>So what do you think? Please review! x<strong>


	2. The Hungry Games

**You know you have chapter when you REALLY don't want to write but you have to and it goes on and on and on and it drags and it's just really horrible? Well this certainly wasn't one of them! Had sooooo much fun writing this that I hope you enjoy it just as much as I've enjoyed writing it! I'll try and work out some kind of plot before the next chapter, so it might be a long wait! But anyway, enjoy!**

**Jo x**

* * *

><p>"Whey! Easy there tiger!" The Time Lord exclaimed as the three men were thrown into a cell at the police station.<p>

"You will remain here until we call you one at a time for questioning." The soldiers turned their backs and headed back down the corridor and out of sight, leaving the men standing there dumbstruck.

"Well, we'd better make ourselves at home." The Doctor smiled as he pulled out a blanket from his sleeve, placed it on the floor by the rails and sat down. Mr Branson and Rory looked at him in surprise and then at each other with a raised eyebrow, before Rory decided to sit by the window and Mr Branson by the adjacent wall.

"Sorry, Mr Branson," Rory piped up after silence had fallen, "what was your name again?"

"Tom. Tom Branson, and you're Mr Rory Pond aren't you?"

"Yes I am. Took my wife's surname!" The two men chuckled.

"And you're Doctor…?"

"Just the Doctor thank you. No other name! Well, I don't tell anyone my real name."

"He's like that Tom, always the secretive one."

"And are you married Doctor?" The man sat on the blanket paused for a moment before answering,

"I don't know. I might be! That'll be interesting if I am. For all I know I could still be married to Elizabeth the first!" He let out a cheeky grin before Rory asked,

"You married Elizabeth the first?"

"You knew that Rory! You heard what Elizabeth the tenth said on Starship UK! The queens love me."

"So how did you meet your wife Rory? If you don't mind my asking."

"We've known each other since school. Been best friends ever since. Nothing really that special."

"Oh what are you talking about?" The Doctor blurted out. "Nothing special? That's the most special romance of them all, built on friendship! Don't listen to him Tom."

"What about Mrs Branson? How did you meet her?" Rory enquired to the man sat near, before a strained expression came across his face.

"Well…" he paused again. "How do I put this? Simply, she's the daughter of the Earl of Grantham and I meet her when I started working for the family as their chauffeur." The other two men stared at him in disbelief, before bursting out laughing.

"What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing funny per se, just unique and wonderful!" The Doctor replied from his area; taking out a bar of Toblerone that looked well past it's use by date.

"Thank you, it's nice that others take pleasure in the heartbreak and pain that I endured during my five years working there, thinking I would never be good enough!" The Irishman chuckled with the others.

"But I bet there wasn't a lot of heartbreak when she said yes." Rory stopped giggling to ask.

"No, but that was almost two and a half years after I first proposed to her! I guess it's just natural really, waiting for women. Have you ever had to wait a long time for your wife?"

"Yes. Two thousand years." Now it was Tom's turn for his mouth to fall open.

"Well, here's a penny for the pain you went through!" Tom reached into his pocket and gave the man the money as the group carried on chuckling away, not thinking of the danger they were in.

"Have you ever waited long for a woman Doctor?" Tom then asked the Time Lord.

"Oh, no, the Doctor doesn't wait, he cheats and travels in time!"

"How is that cheating? That's…ingenuity."

* * *

><p>"Arrg! Get your hands off me you stinking, selfish…" the redhead paused to think about her options in terms of suitable language," arrgg!"<p>

The two woman were forced into a cramped prison cell and sat down immediately.

"I don't suppose…" Amy spoke again as Sybil's mind wandered back to the day of the garden party, when her husband had said the very same words whilst gazing into her eyes. Oh how she worried about him, "you have any food on you?"

"I'm sorry. All I have is a threepence and a shilling on me at the moment." Sybil reached into her purse.

"Shame there isn't an antique vending machine in this cell."

"Sorry, what did you say?"

"Don't worry. You won't understand." Sybil gave Amy a intrigued look before asking,

"You're from the future aren't you? I didn't even know that sort of travel was possible."

"Well, it is and it isn't; not to humans yet."

"That Doctor isn't human then, I'm guessing?"

"You're good at this! You and your husband should come join us on our journeys."

"Oh no thank you." She gave a nervous laugh. "I've had enough of a journey within this past year as it is."

"Ooh! Tell me more, tell me more!" Amy moved closer to the woman sitting opposite her, desperate for some juicy gossip.

"Well," Sybil smiled, "this time last year I was back at my house in Yorkshire; Downton Abbey. My father is the Earl of Grantham you see and_"

"Ooh!"

"Well, there's nothing so ooh about it. The war was almost over and I was having to decide whether to risk losing my family by marrying Tom or not."

"Why? Wouldn't your family approve?"

"He was our Irish Socialist chauffeur, do you think and English Conservative Earl would approve of me marrying him?"

"Aww! How romantic! I just met my husband when I was at school and we were just best friends for most of our childhood."

"That's very romantic!" The Lady smiled. "You've known each other your whole lives! I think that's beautiful. Anyway, what's the future like? Or should I not ask that?"

"it's…different." Amy gave a sly smile.

"I don't want to know any of the details but, what's humanity like in the future? Are we still mindlessly killing?"

"As long as there is a human race there will always be mindless killing I'm afraid. Oh." Amy paused, clutching her stomach.

"My dear what's wrong?" Sybil's expression turned into one of concern.

"Oh nothing. It's just, well, I'm not even sure I should be telling you this, but I think I might be pregnant. Just a bout of sickness that's all."

"How wonderful! Does Rory know about this?"

"No not yet, I told you I'm not even sure if I am."

"Well, that makes two of us."

"You two?" Sybil nodded with a smile on her face as both the women smiled and laughed away in joy.

* * *

><p>"I think we should play a game!" Rory blurted out to the other two men who were also a bit drunk on adrenaline and excitement.<p>

"What game?" The Doctor shouted.

"Word Tennis! Well, I think that's what it's called. We'll start with Tom , we'll go round clockwise, he say a word, one word, then the Doctor will say a word, then me, then Tom and so on and so forth, making a story. Get it?" Tom and the Doctor nodded before the Tom said,

"Once!"

"Upon."

"A."

"Time."

"There."

"Was."

"A."

"Slitheen!" The Doctor exclaimed.

"What's a Slitheen?" Rory questioned.

"It's a monster you haven't met yet, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet were ones once." Tom and Rory looked shocked before the Irishman spoke,

"Well, I'm glad I'm not on their side now!"

"Anyway, Slitheen. Um…called." Rory proceeded to restart the game.

"Violet Crawley." The time travellers stared.

"Violet Crawley?" Rory asked.

"My Grandmother in law."

"Aah! Oh, well it's only one word." Rory replied.

"Well, Violet then."

"Who."

"Sat."

"On."

"A."

"Small."

"Slimy."

"Medusoid!"

"Doctor!" The other men shouted out in exasperation.

* * *

><p>"Are you thinking of names yet?" Amy wondered.<p>

"I haven't even told Tom yet!" Sybil smiled.

"It's never too early for that! Tell me off the top of your head, names that you like."

"Boys names: Tom!"

"Yes, but I hate it when people call their children Tom Junior or Bob Junior!"

"Well, it's a good thing you're not deciding it's name then! Talking of Bob, I quite like Robert, but then that is my father's name."

"Well, that could be good! Maybe your father will be more accepting of the marriage then if you name him Robert."

"I also like the name Michael. Michael Branson sounds nice doesn't it?"

"Very nice! And girls?"

"Girls names: Anna. She was my head housemaid and a good friend. Gwen, also another housemaid and a very dear friend. Maybe an Irish name? I quite like the name Kara, or Saoirse."

"Saoirse? Golly, how do you right that down?"

"S, A, O, I, R, S, E. Sounds crazy to us English speaker I know!" They both smiled. "Maybe something like Saoirse Rose Branson, or Kara Rose Branson."

"Kara Rose Branson." Amy nodded. "That's my favourite."

"If it's a girl!"

"If this were the 21st Century, you could get an ultrasound scan and be able to find out if it's a boy or a girl."

"That would've been some use to my mother and oldest sister!"

* * *

><p>"<em>Na, na, na, na, na na na na, na na na na, Hey Jude!<em>"The men sang out from their cell in a dazed sugar rush from the Doctor's never ending secret supplied of out of date chocolate.

"_Jude-a Jude-a Jude-a Jud-a Jud-a yeah!_" The Doctor ad lib-ed.

"_Na, na, na, na, na na na na, na na na na, Hey Jude!"_

"Will you shut up in there!" One of the officers cried.

"Hey, slow it down Jude!" The Doctor cried, with his bow tie round his head, a pair of shade over his eyes and another over his forehead.

"Yeah, take a chill pill man!" Rory blurted, with his socks on his ears.

"Yeah, give a little bit of love!" Tom yelled as he stuffed his face with yet another Flake, leaving a trail of crumbs in his lap and around his mouth.

"_Give a little bit,_" Rory sang before the Doctor joined in in harmony,

"_Give a little bit of your love to me._"

"Is that the Beatles, Doctor?"

"No That's Supertramp!"

"_What shall we do with the drunken sailor!_" Tom sang.

"_What shall we do with the drunken sailor!_" Sang the Doctor.

"_What shall we do with the drunken sailor!" _Blaster Rory out of key.

"_Earl-i in the mornin'!"_ They all sang together.

"_What shall we do with the stinking Dalek?" _The Doctor sang, before they all joined in,

"_What shall we do with the stinking Dalek? What shall we do with the stinking Dalek? Earl-I in the mornin'!" _

"Rory? What shall we do with the stinking Dalek?"

"_Poke him in the eye and watch him die! Poke him in the eye and watch him die! Poke him in the eye and watch him die! Earl-i in the mornin'!"_

"That's brutal Rory!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"OK, well Tom come up with a "what shall we do" and then you say what we'll do!"

"_What shall we do with the Earl of Grantham! What shall we do with the Earl of Grantham! What shall we do with the Earl of Grantham! Earl-i in the mornin'_!"

"Doctor?" Rory looked at the Time Lord.

"What shall we do with my father in law?"

"Um…_Make him wear a chauffeur's outfit!" _The other two began to join in,

"_Make him wear a chauffeur's outfit! Make him wear a chauffeur's outfit! Earl-i in the mornin'!" _

And so the two groups of friends and lovers talked and laughed and sang on into the night, not aware that tomorrow will be a day far worse than they could have imagined at this moment in time.

* * *

><p><strong>Got a bit carried away with the singing! So what do you think? Did you enjoy it?<strong>


End file.
